Psychedelic-assisted therapy is being actively researched by mental health researchers for its efficacy. And where it's legal, it's reported to be highly effective in treating depression and suicide prevention. Suicide rates within our veteran and first responder communities are incredibly high, and I’ve had conversations before with several guests on SelfWork about this very painful fact. Research shows that traditional therapies often fall short for these individuals, leading to a search for alternative approaches. In recent years, psychedelic-assisted therapy has emerged as a promising option, harnessing substances like psilocybin and MDMA in controlled settings to facilitate profound psychological healing. By creating a safe environment for exploration of deep-seated traumas, individuals can experience breakthroughs that may have previously been inaccessible through conventional therapeutic methods.

Pre-order The Perfectly Hidden Depression Workbook - A stand-alone workbook exploring the ten traits of Perfectly Hidden Depression, with guided exercises to help you decide what to keep from your drive and perfectionism, and what to let go.

Publishes April 1st! Pre-orders matter!

Be a part of the conversation and join Dr. Margaret’s newsletter for one weekly email featuring the latest blog post and podcast episode.

Have a question or comment? Send a voice message for possible use on the podcast. By recording, you give permission for your voice to be used on SelfWork!

Flashbacks and nightmares are primary symptoms of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) as well as CPTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) – and they’re extremely frightening to have.

Nightmares and flashbacks occur in different states of consciousness. Flashbacks happen when you’re awake and conscious; nightmares happen during sleep. Nightmares can involve a range of distressing themes, from feelings of helplessness to fears of abandonment. You don’t have to have experienced trauma to have a nightmare, whereas flashbacks are reliving the trauma itself.

We'll talk about the treatments available for both today on SelfWork!

Pre-order The Perfectly Hidden Depression Workbook - A stand-alone workbook exploring the ten traits of Perfectly Hidden Depression, with guided exercises to help you decide what to keep from your drive and perfectionism, and what to let go.

Publishes April 1st! Pre-orders matter!

Be a part of the conversation and join Dr. Margaret’s newsletter for one weekly email featuring the latest blog post and podcast episode.

Have a question or comment? Send a voice message for possible use on the podcast. By recording, you give permission for your voice to be used on SelfWork!

Messy marriages are all over the place – and living through them and maybe grieving them can at times be extremely complicated. In today’s SelfWork episode, whether you’re grieving the death of someone with whom you had a complex and even hurtful relationship or whether that relationship still exists, you are often needing to grieve that person’s impact on you. With Valentines Day fast approaching, a date that people often have great fun with or hate living through, it’s important to realize that not all grief belongs with “good” or “meaningful” relationships. Maybe you were estranged from them. Maybe the relationship or marriage has taken you down paths that you didn’t want to go or never thought you would – and you have difficult feelings about that. It may seem contradictory – why would you need to grieve someone’s life or simply their presence in your life – if they’d hurt you? Or if you regret either getting married or staying married. That’s on today’s SelfWork.

The listener email today is from someone who read my book on perfectly hidden depression and was moved by it. She paints in eloquent detail her own reaction. Why am I reading it to you? Because maybe it explains how you might feel – or how someone you love might feel.

Link to pre-order the Perfectly Hidden Depression Workbook!

Research on divorce's effect on children

Click HERE for the NEXT GEN offer from AG1 – with bonus product with your new subscription

I’m excited to let you know that my new workbook, The Perfectly Hidden Depression Workbook, is available for pre-order! It’s a stand-alone workbook (so doesn't need to be used with the original book) and goes through the ten traits of PHD - things like taking on too much responsibility, not knowing how to be more open emotionally - and guides you through new exercises and ideas. These can help you decide what about your drive or your perfectionism you want to keep - and what you need to let go. It’ll publish on April 1st - but pre-order numbers are very important! So I’ll hope you’ll pre-order now! Here's the link!

You can hear more about mental health and many other topics by listening to my podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Subscribe to my newsletter and receive one weekly email from me, highlighting my weekly blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join myself and others in my private FaceBook group, click here and answer the membership questions! I'd love to see you there!

And there’s another way to send me a message! You can record by clicking below and ask your question or make a comment. You’ll have 90 seconds to do so and that time goes quickly. By recording, you’re giving SelfWork (and me) permission to use your voice on the podcast. I’ll look forward to hearing from you!

Today we're exploring what's termed "anticipatory grieving."

When you know something is going to happen that will bring its own kind of grief… whether it’s a loved one being diagnosed with a terminal illness, an unwanted divorce being filed, learning that a child will struggle with a learning difference – it can bring a slew of emotions, many of them moving in and out of your awareness quickly. Anticipatory grieving is a way to imagine, visualize, and begin to emotionally prepare for the loss that is to come.

We’ll focus today on the five steps of anticipatory grieving – the how, when, what, where, and why it’s important. But before I do that, for any of you who are thinking, “Why in the hell would I want to do that?” I’ll answer that very good and reasonable question.

I received a lovely message from someone telling me she’d listened to my podcast episode with Terry McGuire – who’s the host of Giving Voice to Depression and has struggled with depression herself. Terry talked about anhedonia – and this listener asked me to talk more about what you can do about this particular symptom of depression.

Link to pre-order the Perfectly Hidden Depression Workbook!

I’m excited to let you know that my new workbook, The Perfectly Hidden Depression Workbook, is available for pre-order! It’s a stand-alone workbook (so doesn't need to be used with the original book) and goes through the ten traits of PHD - things like taking on too much responsibility, not knowing how to be more open emotionally - and guides you through new exercises and ideas. These can help you decide what about your drive or your perfectionism you want to keep - and what you need to let go. It’ll publish on April 1st - but pre-order numbers are very important! So I’ll hope you’ll pre-order now! Here's the link!

You can hear more about mental health and many other topics by listening to my podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Subscribe to my newsletter and receive one weekly email from me, highlighting my weekly blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join myself and others in my private FaceBook group, click here and answer the membership questions! I'd love to see you there!

And there’s another way to send me a message! You can record by clicking below and ask your question or make a comment. You’ll have 90 seconds to do so and that time goes quickly. By recording, you’re giving SelfWork (and me) permission to use your voice on the podcast. I’ll look forward to hearing from you!

Self-criticism can take on a life of its own. And become so constant that you have to fight it on a daily or even hourly basis.

So today we’re going to focus on what may be keeping your self-criticism alive and well in ways that you don't realize.

There are two steps we’ll cover. The first is raising awareness of your own inner self-critical voice. The second is assessing what role or function it may have for you. What purpose might self-criticism have that weirdly protects you in some way or serves a role for you in your life?

For our email, I’ve pulled some excerpts from an email I received from a younger reader who’d read the article on enmeshment I have on my website. She has questions about her relationship with her parents – she finds herself, even in her early 20’s, sharing certain kinds of things with them that her friends don’t share with their parents – and think it’s a little strange that she shares those experiences with hers. Her friends are saying that that’s oversharing – that there are certain things you no longer share with your folks as you grow and develop your own life away from them. Are her friends right?

Click HERE for the NEXT GEN offer from AG1 – with bonus product with your new subscription!

Link to pre-order the Perfectly Hidden Depression Workbook!

Dr. Margaret's article on covert narcissism

Enmeshment article by Dr. Margaret

I’m excited to let you know that my new workbook, The Perfectly Hidden Depression Workbook, is available for pre-order! It’s a stand-alone workbook (so doesn't need to be used with the original book) and goes through the ten traits of PHD - things like taking on too much responsibility, not knowing how to be more open emotionally - and guides you through new exercises and ideas. These can help you decide what about your drive or your perfectionism you want to keep - and what you need to let go. It’ll publish on April 1st - but pre-order numbers are very important! So I’ll hope you’ll pre-order now! Here's the link!

You can hear more about mental health and many other topics by listening to my podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Subscribe to my newsletter and receive one weekly email from me, highlighting my weekly blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join myself and others in my private FaceBook group, click here and answer the membership questions! I'd love to see you there!

And there’s another way to send me a message! You can record by clicking below and ask your question or make a comment. You’ll have 90 seconds to do so and that time goes quickly. By recording, you’re giving SelfWork (and me) permission to use your voice on the podcast. I’ll look forward to hearing from you!

Are you being judgmental? Many of us would quickly say "no" to that question. But how many people do you know one thing about – and one thing only – and you categorize them as “bad” or “good”, "weak" or "strong," "smart" or "not the brightest bulb."

It doesn’t take long for us to form an opinion. And there are obvious situations – such as one where there’s the possibility of harm – where quick judgments are necessary and very helpful.

But what about the kind of judgment that you make because of your own biases? There are two mental mistakes we'll focus on today: confirmation bias and fundamental attribution error. They sound fancy, but many of us make these errors in judgment every day.

So today we’re going to focus on how you judge your own judgmental-ness. Are you using your better judgment? Or are you making quick judgments that are based on biases and assumptions?

Click HERE for the NEXT GEN offer from AG1 – with bonus product with your new subscription!

Test on the Psychology Today website to rate your own judgmental-ness!

New York Times article on Kristin Cabot

Time article on Monica Lewinsky

I’m excited to let you know that my new workbook, The Perfectly Hidden Depression Workbook, is available for pre-order! It’s a stand-alone workbook (so doesn't need to be used with the original book) and goes through the ten traits of PHD - things like taking on too much responsibility, not knowing how to be more open emotionally - and guides you through new exercises and ideas. These can help you decide what about your drive or your perfectionism you want to keep - and what you need to let go. It’ll publish on April 1st - but pre-order numbers are very important! So I’ll hope you’ll pre-order now! Here's the link!

You can hear more about mental health and many other topics by listening to my podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Subscribe to my newsletter and receive one weekly email from me, highlighting my weekly blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join myself and others in my private FaceBook group, click here and answer the membership questions! I'd love to see you there!

And there’s another way to send me a message! You can record by clicking below and ask your question or make a comment. You’ll have 90 seconds to do so and that time goes quickly. By recording, you’re giving SelfWork (and me) permission to use your voice on the podcast. I’ll look forward to hearing from you!

How do you know if someone with sociopathic traits is playing with your mind? Today on SelfWork we’re going to talk about just that.

The term cognitive dissonance has been around for quite a long time. What it’s describing is when you do something or say something that you believe to be wrong or unkind or unjust. But you do it or say it anyway. So, you’re not following or abiding by the values that you say you have.

But cognitive dissonance can also be caused or created as well through toxic manipulation or what’s termed gaslighting. This is when someone with narcissistic traits or sociopathic ones creates a smokescreen of confounding lies, even telling you one thing is true as well as its opposite, and expecting you to blindly follow. The trap is complete when they prevent you from trusting your own gut or mind or heart. Or guide or lead you away from their manipulation.

It can be paralyzing.

You either must cut yourself off from the value that you hold – or you must become more aware of the manipulation. You must see that it’s happening and how it’s happening. But remember, the actions and manipulations of the person who wants you to be paralyzed are still coming on strong.

Today’s voicemail is from a woman in France who’s asking me about perfectly hidden depression – and in French. I had to get out my translating app because my own French was a little too rusty – but I was pretty much on the mark.

BBC article on the young Elizabeth Holmes

ThriveWorks article on emotional manipulation and sociopathy

Bustle article on games played by those with sociopathic traits

Click HERE for the NEXT GEN offer from AG1 – with bonus product with your new subscription!

You can hear more about this and many other topics by listening to my podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Subscribe to my website and receive my weekly newsletter including a blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed group, then click here and answer the membership questions! Welcome!

My book entitled Perfectly Hidden Depression is available and you can order here! Its message is specifically for those with a struggle with strong perfectionism which acts to mask underlying emotional pain. But the many self-help techniques described can be used by everyone who chooses to begin to address emotions long hidden away that are clouding and sabotaging your current life. And it’s available in paperback, eBook or as an audiobook!

And send me a message! You can record by clicking below and ask your question or make a comment. By recording, you’re giving SelfWork (and me) permission to use your voice on the podcast. I’ll look forward to hearing from you!

Disappointment. It’s a feeling in between hurt and shock. Why? Because you expect one thing – and you receive another. It doesn’t quite shock you - maybe it wasn’t totally unexpected. And it doesn’t crush you – it’s not exactly traumatic.

But expectation and disappointment are totally interrelated.

Some disappointment is normal of course. You don’t always win the prize or get what you were striving for, whether that’s a job, or a grade, a promotion, or a relationship moving ahead. But how do you feel it? And is it possible that you’re setting yourself up for disappointment in some way, especially if you tend to get disappointed a lot?

How can you identify the expectations that you have that are likely not rational? You can so hope something is going to be different – that when it’s not – you’re disappointed for sure. Does that mean that your expectation was “wrong?”

There’s a lot of focus on social media right now about building your capacity or your skill set in managing what’s hurtful in your life. Coping with disappointment. Not identifying with whatever has been hard so much as you feel what you need to feel, what’s helpful to feel, but then using that emotional and psychological learning to grow from it, rather than being paralyzed by it.

In this week's voicemail, I'm not sure of the article that the readers is referencing. But the important ‘aha’ experience for her was… "if I struggle to see something in myself, and even therapists or “experts” struggle to see it, then how could I have expected my ex to see it?" Something was a blind spot for her. And she’s doing the important work of taking on her share of the responsibility for her divorce – then seeing how she can move past it. She’s growing her skill set.

You can pre-order Dr. Margaret's Perfectly Hidden Depression Workbook by clicking right here! And I'm so excited! It's an actual workbook so all your "selfwork" is contained in its covers!

It's a stand-alone look at all the ten traits of PHD - such as struggling to express painful emotion, taking too much responsibility by staying eternally "busy," and balancing gratitude with what is real hardship. Then you're guided to keep what is worth keeping about that trait, and gently let go of what's harmful.

Have you been putting off getting help? BetterHelp, the #1 online therapy provider, has a special offer for you now!

You can hear more about this and many other topics by listening to my podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Subscribe to my website and receive my weekly newsletter including a blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed group, then click here and answer the membership questions! Welcome!

My book entitled Perfectly Hidden Depression is available here! Its message is specifically for those with a struggle with strong perfectionism which acts to mask underlying emotional pain. But the many self-help techniques described can be used by everyone who chooses to begin to address emotions long hidden away that are clouding and sabotaging your current life.

There’s another way to send me a message! You can record by clicking below and ask your question or make a comment. You’ll have 90 seconds to do so and that time goes quickly. By recording, you’re giving SelfWork (and me) permission to use your voice on the podcast. I’ll look forward to hearing from you!